CHEECH AND THE SPOOKY GHOST BUS

Entertainer Marin returns with another tired tale about his bus-driving alter ego (Cheech the School Bus Driver, 2007, etc.). This time he runs afoul of a group of ghost children who get on at an unplanned stop and then refuse to get off, ultimately hijacking it to their own ghost school, where they are reunited with their own ghost bus driver. In between, Cheech tries to get his Cheecharrones to scare the ghosts off, but the living children quickly recognize that the ghost children are a lot of fun. Ramírez supplies bright, cartoony illustrations that depict energetic if washed-out ghosts who are indeed a lot more fun than the rule-spouting, ineffectual Cheech. This nonstarter of a story should, but probably won’t, spell the end of Marin’s picture-book career. Yawnnnn. (Picture book. 5-8)